Chapter 2

Dealing With Culture Shock and Emotional Stress

Meeting people from new cultures can be fun and exciting. We love travel, we love new experiences, and we also love being challenged by seeing and experiencing different lifestyles. Whether we travel overseas for business or pleasure, or work in a foreign country, we can prepare ourselves by reading about the new country—the culture and experience of other people. What we cannot prepare, however, is our emotional reaction to a new place and especially to a new business environment.

How managers react in a foreign culture is very difficult to predict. Some people have absolutely no experience dealing with cross-cultural issues yet enjoy living and working in a challenging new world, taking ...

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